Biblical Arguments for Slavery In the article below, Morton Smith shows how the Bible condones and justifies slavery. It has been adapted from a paper originally given at FREE INQUIRY s "Ethics in Conflict" conference, held at the University of Richmond last fall.

Morton Smith

I suppose we all agree that slavery is repulsive. Although we can grant that some people need a lot of direction, or want strong figures to rely on, we reject the notion that

one person should actually own another as one might own an animal or a piece of furniture. Such a relationship, we would say, denies the essential dignity, the basic humanity of a human being. Slavery is not only an outrage to the slave, but a disgrace to the owner, in that it reveals his lack of moral feeling.

This attitude, however, is comparatively new. It is the conse-quence not only of the Union Army's victory in the Civil War, which broke the power of the Confederacy, but also of a century-long campaign of moral education and social and poli-tical organization that culminated in that war and by means of it succeeded in changing both the laws and the public opinion that permitted slavery.

Among the reasons that made the campaign so long and so difficult was the fact that slavery is not only permitted but actually ordained by the Bible. The first biblical mention of it, in fact, prescribes it for a whole third of mankind, the des-cendants of Ham, the son of Noah.

You may remember the story told in Genesis 6-9. Noah was the only man God liked well enough to save from the flood (Gen. 6:8, 13 f.). After the flood, however, Noah took to drink and lay drunk and naked in his tent. His son Ham saw him there and told his brothers, Shem and Japeth. They took a cloak, walked backward into their father's tent, and covered him without looking at him. When Noah woke up he learned that Ham had tattled on him, so he cursed Ham's descendants in the person of his son, Canaan: "Let him be a slave of slaves" (Gen. 9:18-27). Since biblical legend proposes that all mankind

has descended from these three boys, Noah's curse destined approximately a third of mankind to be enslaved to the others.

The translators of the Authorized Version were a bit em-barrassed by Noah's curse. Saint Jerome (340?-420), who knew Hebrew, had translated it accurately, servus servorum, but the Greek translation (pais oiketes) did not follow the Hebrew exactly, so the Englishmen compromised and rendered the phrase as "servant of servants." Let me comment on the sense of the Hebrew text.

Biblical Hebrew is poor in words expressing social relation-ships. It uses one term, 'eyed, for any kind of servant, from a king's minister (as in 2 Kings 25:8) to a nomad's slave (Gen. 12:16). The primary sense, however, is "slave"; the other senses are metaphorical, as is the use in contemporary polite address when a speaker refers to himself as "your slave." (Here, as above, English usage replaced "slave" by "servant," so even up to World War II old-fashioned Englishmen went on signing themselves, "Your humble and obedient servant.") The words for "female slave" were similarly ambiguous.' In order to deter-mine the sense of these words in any particular case one must always consider the context. Likewise, to understand the actual conditions of slaves throughout the centuries in which the bib-lical books were written, one must look at the contexts of all those passages in which these words refer to slaves.

Such tasks are much too long for this article. So, let me take only one early, famous example—the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar—which shows how an Israelite author of the tenth or ninth century B.C.E. thought his pious hero would treat a slave girl (Gen. 16:1-16; 21:8-21). As everybody knows, Abraham and his half-sister Sarah had long lived in, shall we say, "half-incestuous marriage." Sarah, however, was childless. She had some property of her own, including some slave girls, and she decided to give one of them to Abraham so he could have children from her former property. She thought this would, as she put it, "build her up" (16:2). Her choice was an Egyptian girl, Hagar, whom she may have bought while visiting Egypt some ten years before. Abraham was well on in years,' but of course no one asked the girl whether she would enjoy this coupling. Sarah simply put the proposition to Abraham,

Morton Smith is emeritus professor of ancient history and special lecturer in reli-gion at Columbia University. He is the author of The Secret Gospel and Jesus the Magician.

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he agreed, she gave him Hagar, and Hagar conceived. But then Hagar became contemptuous of Sarah, who complained to her husband. So Abraham said, in effect, "I give her back to you. Do as you like with her."' Sarah treated Hagar so badly that she ran away, but when she got out into the desert she saw an angel who advised her to go back, take her medicine, and keep her place. After all, she had Abraham's child in her, so she could not be treated too badly; indeed, the child might grow up to avenge her. (It is remarkable how often visions give basically sensible advice.) She obeyed and had the child—a boy, who was called Ishmael—and then, some thirteen years later, Sarah had a son. No sooner was Sarah's son weaned than she saw Ishmael as a possible competitor for a share of Abraham's property. She then pressed Abraham to drive Hagar and Ishmael out of the camp. At first he refused "because of his son" (nothing is said of any concern about Hagar, 21:11), but another prudent angel advised him to do as Sarah de-manded. Hence, big-hearted Abraham sent away a slave who had been in the family for more than twenty years. With a parting gift of some bread and a jug of water so large that she had to carry it on her shoulder (21:14), Hagar and her son were cast into the desert on foot.

This story indicates clearly the social status of what the Authorized Version politely called Sarah's "handmaid." The proper term is slave, and the social practices that the Bible never criticizes are those of chattel slavery. Hagar was simply a piece of property, to be used as needed and thrown out when needed no longer.

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance indicates that the Author-ized Version uses "slave" only twice, and the Revised Version only twice more, but there are hundreds of uses of Greek and Hebrew words that mean "slave."5 Stories like that of Hagar and Ishmael illustrate this vividly, but necessarily deal with particular cases. Biblical laws give a better picture of general practices.

According to the Bible, slaves could be acquired by capture in war (e.g., Deut. 20:10 ff.), or purchased from slave dealers and resident aliens. The author of Leviticus so much preferred this latter method of acquisition that he made the use of it a positive commandment (25:44 ff.): "From the gentiles who are round about you, from them you shall buy male and female slaves, and also from the descendants of the natives who are living with you, from them you shall buy, and from their descendants . . . and [the slaves purchased] shall be your [permanent] possessions; you shall bequeath them to your children after you as a permanent possession forever; you shall use them as slaves" (my italics).

While prescribing this treatment for gentiles, Leviticus dis-couraged the purchase of Israelite slaves, but he did not prohibit it. The context of the passage just cited, and many other texts, makes it clear that there were poor men willing to sell off their children, or even to sell themselves, into slavery; and even Israelites and their children might be purchased, though their condition after purchase was mitigated by some special laws (Exod. 21; Deut. 15; Num. 25). Defaulting debtors also could be seized by creditors and sold into slavery (2 Kings 4:1; Neh. 5:1-5)—sometimes, reportedly, for as little as the price of a pair

of shoes (Amos 2:6—but prophetic rhetoric, then as now, is not wholly trustworthy). Similarly, thieves who could not pay for what they had stolen were enslaved (Exod. 22:2). Finally, an owner could breed slaves from his own stock. The Bible says, "If [an Israelite slave's] master gives him [a slave woman as] a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to the master." If the Israelite slave is set free, "he shall go out by himself' (Exod. 21:4). In the same way, any other property a slave might acquire belonged to his master. For instance, after David became king he gave the son of Jonathan, his former lover, all that remained of Saul's property, including one of Saul's slaves who was named Ziba. Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty slaves of his own, so all these, and he himself, became slaves of Jonathan's son (2 Sam. 9:1-10).

The extent of the master's property rights is perhaps best shown by the law on manslaughter. If two free men fight and one kills the other during the fight, the winner is also to be killed; but, if the loser survives for a day or two and gets up and walks about, the winner need pay him only for his loss of time. On the other hand, if a man beats his slave so that the slave dies during the beating, the law prescribes only that the slave "shall be avenged" (Exod. 21:20)—the vengeance is not specified—and (the text goes on) "if [the slave] survives for a day or two he shall not be avenged, for he is his [master's] property," literally "his money" (Exod. 21:21).

On all these matters the texts are reasonably clear. Conse-quently, if we take the Old Testament literally, we must admit, as one American preacher put it in 1857, that "slavery is of God."6

I suppose a number of Christians will have gone along complacently with the preceding discussion. After all, hasn't the Mosaic law been "fulfilled," and somehow invalidated, by

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Jesus? Should we not read the Old Testament with a combina-tion of profound respect and profound indifference? Something like this may have been the position of Paul. Luckily, however, we need not discuss that question. For the sake of the argument, we can concede their point, throw out the Old Testament and its embarrassing laws, and consider only what the New Testa-ment has to say about slavery.

What the New Testament has to say, it says in Greek, and therefore fairly clearly, because the Greek word for "slave," doulos, has little of the ambiguity of the Hebrew 'ved. So far as I know, until Christians got control of the Roman empire, doulos was never used of a king's minister, nor by a free man in self-depreciation, except in translations of Near-Eastern texts (among them, the Old Testament') and in speaking of enslave-ment to the gods." When otherwise used in reference to free men it is pejorative, indicating subjugation, usually moral or political—a "slave" of the passions, a "subject" of the Persian King, etc. While slaves and free men can both be referred to as "servants," "helpers," and so on, the difference of legal status remains sharp. When a free servant is called a doulos the speaker is either abusing him or mistaken.° This clarity has been completely obscured in the Authorized and Revised versions of the New Testament, which commonly translate doulos by "servant" or the like, as part of their practice of whitewashing the Word of God.

Once these facts are clear, we can see that Jesus lived in a world where slavery was common. There were innumerable slaves of the emperor and of the Roman state; the Jerusalem

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Temple owned slaves; the High Priests owned slaves (one of them lost an ear in Jesus' arrest); all of the rich and almost all of the middle class owned slaves. So far as we are told, Jesus never attacked this practice. He took the state of affairs for granted and shaped his parables accordingly. As Jesus presents things, the main problem for the slaves is not to get free, but to win their masters' praise.10 There seem to have been slave revolts in Palestine and Jordan in Jesus' youth (Josephus, Bellum 2:55-65); a miracle-working leader of such a revolt would have attracted a large following. If Jesus had denounced slavery or promised liberation, we should almost certainly have heard of his doing so. We hear nothing, so the most likely supposition is that he said nothing. (The silence cannot plausibly be explained by supposing that he kept the teaching secret, or that his fol-lowers suppressed it. We know that he and they used secrecy and suppression about both his claim to be King of the Jews and his magical practices. Nevertheless, reports of both Messianic claims and magical rites have come down to us.") Had there been any considerable teaching or significant action about the liberation of slaves, reports of that would have reached us, too. The issue was a hot one.

Also, if he had advocated liberation his followers would probably have followed his teaching. But the Gospels and Acts say nothing of it, and Paul, our earliest Christian writer, not only tolerates slavery but orders Christians to continue it. He has the notion, perhaps from Jesus' magical practices, that all those baptized "into Jesus" are united with their Savior, so that "in" Him "there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, but all ... are one in Messiah Jesus" (Gal. 3:28; cf. Rom. 10:12; 1 Cor. 7:22, 12:13; Col. 3:11). However, Paul recognizes that this internal union does not obliterate differences of social position in the outside world. Although he thinks these differences relatively unimportant, he insists that they continue. Of slavery in particular he says, "If you, as a slave, were called [by God to become a Christian], don't worry [about your slavery], but if you can also become a free man, you had better.... [As a general rule, however], let each man remain in that [social position] in which he was called" (1 Cor. 7:21, 24).

What this meant in practice was shown when one of the slaves of Philemon, a convert, ran away, came to Paul, and was converted by him. This conversion put Paul in a tight spot. To conceal a runaway slave was legally a theft,'2 and the penalties were severe. So he sent the slave back to Philemon with a letter asking him as a favor to keep the slave "forever, no longer [as] a slave, but ... [as] a beloved brother." The letter concludes, "Confident of your obedience, I have written you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. And at the same time prepare accommodations for me, for I hope [to visit you soon]." This was a gentle way of telling Philemon that Paul intended to check up on the slave's status. The whole letter, in fact, is wonderfully kind and careful, and this increases the significance of what it carefully does not say. It does not say, "Christians are not allowed to own one another as slaves; therefore, by conversion, your slave has become free of you." On the contrary, it recognizes the validity of Philemon's owner-ship of the slave and hopes that he will continue to own (Greek,

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apechein) him forever. But it asks him, please, as a special favor, to treat this slave as a brother." Of course Philemon's ownership and treatment of his other slaves, particularly those who are pagans, are not questioned. Neither is slavery as an institution; its validity is implicitly recognized.

If there was any doubt about the meaning of the letter to Philemon, it would be settled by the letter to the Colossians-if only we were sure that Colossians was genuine. But, even if it is not, it would certainly be the earliest, closest, and most perceptive imitation and interpretation of Paul. After laying down the Pauline rule that "in Christ" "there is neither Greek nor Jew ... barbarian, Scythian, slave [or] free man" (3:11), Colossians goes on to give rules of behavior for people in different social positions: wives, husbands, children, parents, and "slaves," who are to "be obedient in all things to your civil [Greek, kata sarka] masters, not with pretended obedience like those trying to please men, but sincerely, fearing the Lord... . You serve the Lord Messiah and any cheater will get what [he deserves]" (3:22-25). Whether or not the master is Christian is not asked. It is simply that as owner he is, by civil law, in the place of God-though the text goes on to warn owners that they must be just and even-handed in dealing with their slaves, knowing that they themselves have a master in heaven (4:1). This picture of the entire world as a great Roman estate in which all the inhabitants are slaves of God was not peculiarly Christian. Even before the church won legal acceptance the emperors were beginning to take the title "master" (dominus) as proper for the head of the household and owner of the slaves. However, the triumph of Christianity did much to strengthen the trend, and, among the elements of Christianity, Paul's habitual designation of himself as "Paul, the slave of Christ" (Rom. 1:1; Gal. 1:10; Phil. 1:1; imitated in Titus 1:1, etc.) was particularly influential. This loathsome belief, that man is properly a slave, obviously invites rhetorical develop-ment; hence we go back at once to the simpler question, What does the New Testament say about actual slavery?

Colossians was often imitated, so the New Testament con-tains a number of generally recognized, pseudo-Pauline for-geries, and three of these, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, and Titus, contain passages on slavery to the same effect as the one we have just seen.14 Of these, 1 Timothy is the most interesting, because it particularly enjoins Christian slaves to obey Christian masters; they are "not to treat them contemptuously just be-cause they are brothers [in Christ]" (1 Tim. 6:2).

With all these clear passages, there is no reasonable doubt that the New Testament, like the Old, not only tolerated chattel slavery (the form prevalent in the Greco-Roman world of Paul's time), but perpetuated it by making the slaves' obedience to their masters a religious duty. This biblical morality was one of the great handicaps that the emancipation movement in this country had to overcome.15 That it was overcome, and that revulsion to slavery is now in this country almost universal, is one of our great national accomplishments.

Notes

1. Cf. the papal servus servorum Dei ("a slave of the slaves of God"). 2. Shiphah and 'amah. For the use of the former polite self-depreciation

Spring 1987

see 2 Sam. 14:7-19. 3. The Bible makes him eighty-five (Gen. 16:16), an unusually gifted

man. 4. This is the legal significance of the Hebrew, "Behold, your slave girl

is in your hand" (Gen. 16:6). 5. J. Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (Madison, N.J.,

1894). 6. F. Ross, Slavery Ordained of God (Philadelphia, 1857), p. 5. 7. This includes texts that are virtually translations, e.g., Josephus,

Antiquities 2:70. 8. E.g., Luke 1:38, and numerous pagan uses. When Paul describes

himself as a slave of the Corinthians "for Jesus' sake" (2 Cor. 4:5) the enslavement is clearly to Jesus. So, too, Matt. 20:27, etc. Notice that the free, hired laborers who receive pay are not "slaves" but "workers," Matt. 10:10; 20:1-8; James 5:4; etc.

9. Similarly, Paul's description of a child as "no different from a slave" is deliberately contemptuous of pre-Christian Judaism (Gal. 4:1).

10. Matt. 10:25, a good slave should do as his master; 18:23-35; 24:45-50; 25:14-30; Mark 13:34-36; Luke 7:2-10; 12:42-47; 17:7-10; 19:12-26; John 13:If.; 15:14-17.

I I. See M. Smith, Jesus the Magician (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981).

12. A. Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law (Philadelphia, 1953), p. 705.

13. Paul probably had in mind, but significantly did not cite, the passage of Leviticus quoted above, which distinguishes sharply between gentiles, who are to be enslaved, and "your brother," the Israelite, who, even if enslaved, is to be treated kindly.

14. 1 Tim. 6:12; Eph. 6:5-8; Titus 2:9-10. 15. Amusing examples of attempts to explain away the biblical facts will

be found in A. Barnes, An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery (New York, 1857), passim; J. Blanchard and N. Rice, A Debate on Slavery (Cin-cinnati and New York, 1846), pp. 248-419; and R. Sunderland, Anti-Slavery Manual (New York, 1837), chaps. 7-9. •

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